It's mismanagement, a prevalence of PE pushing profit margins as thin as possible, and the inevitable feeling of an oncoming recession. Mismanagement and PE both push to prioritizing short term gains (something you can use to justify your position/investment today) at the cost of long term profitability. No one is getting a bonus for having a great quarter in 2046 when your new project has turned you into a trillion dollar company. Executives tend to be very gullible and believe the department head that will claim it wasn't R&D but the new slick UX that 10x'd the company.

Add to that the economy, especially after the disastrous Trump administration, which we can all plainly see as an oncoming train heading straight towards us, and even those who would optimistically advocate for long term budgeting in good times are in baton down the hatches mode.

Hiring juniors is an excellent long term strategy that takes time to pay off - you're much better off having a mix of labor that can mix bold initiative and raw enthusiasm with prudence and planning - and those junior devs today will turn into highly skilled professionals with a deep understanding of your platform in half a decade or so. But when times are lean that's difficult to justify.

I wouldn't shift all the blame away from AI though, this isn't a singular cause thing - working for a PE owned firm we're now on the hook for 200/mo anthropic seats owing to our overlords making a horrible deal. The current brand of AI is a rent-seeking technology that's pulling funds out of the working areas of the economy to fund its insane R&D concepts while more traditional AI applications that have proven utility are languishing,